Teaching Excellence and Programs that Enhance Learning (OLT)

The Australian Awards for University Teaching comprise five award types recognising teaching excellence and outstanding contributions to student learning:

Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning

Awards for Programmes that Enhance Learning

Awards for Teaching Excellence

Prime Minister's Award for Australian University Teacher of the Year (there is no application for this category)

Career Achievement Award (no application for this category)

The Teaching Excellence award celebrates a group of the nation’s most outstanding university teachers in their fields. Teaching Awards give recognition to teachers (individuals and teams) renowned for the excellence of their teaching, who have outstanding presentation skills and who have made a broad and deep contribution to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education.

The Programmes that Enhance Learning award recognises learning and teaching support programs and services that make an outstanding contribution to the quality of student learning and the quality of the student experience of higher education. The programs and services that receive Program Awards must have demonstrated their effectiveness through rigorous evaluation and will set benchmarks for similar activities in other institutions. Priority areas are listed on the OLT website.

ACU process

Universities are able to submit up to 8 individuals or teams for Teaching Excellence Awards.Therefore in liaison with LTC, ACU Faculties are required to endorse a limited number of possible candidates. If you are interested on one of these awards, you may wish to speak to your supervisor or your Associate Dean (L&T) in the first instance.

Faculty staff are then invited to work with LTC staff on their draft application. This process usually commences in February. Final drafts are then submitted to the University Awards and Grants Committee for consideration. Those submissions approved by the Committee are then submitted to OLT.

A similar process operates for Programmes that Enhance Learning award applications. There are 6 award categories – please refer to the OLT Nomination instructions on the OLT website. Universities are able to submit up to 8 Programme award nominations, with a maximum of 2 in any category.